


The Bookshop

by medumyce



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: (aziraphale/crowley is only briefly mentioned), M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-06
Updated: 2020-03-06
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:42:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23044207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medumyce/pseuds/medumyce
Summary: Statement of Laurence O’Connor regarding his discovery of a highly unusual bookshop in Soho. Original statement given December 19, 2002. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 188





	The Bookshop

Statement of Laurence O’Connor regarding his discovery of a highly unusual bookshop in Soho. Original statement given December 19, 2002. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute, London.

Statement begins.

I know it’s been fifteen years. I knew I wasn’t going to tell anyone right away. I didn’t want to. That’s why I wrote it down. I’ve tried to do a bit of follow-up to... that which occurred, and I’ve come up with nothing to prove any of this. I’ll tell you that up front. If I hadn’t written it down, I’m not sure I would trust my own memory of the whole thing. I don’t know what he was, to this day, though I have my theories. Not unfounded, of course. I’ve done my research. I know all about choirs, holy fire, wheels within wheels, that sort of thing. Have for a long time. You pick up on certain topics, I suppose, when you’re raised in the church. But I didn’t jump to conclusions, no. I tried to be skeptical about it... but there are some things that are beyond science, in my opinion; things that are real and natural, just, perhaps... unseen. And I think that the man I met in Soho that night was one of those things.

I want to start by assuring you that I by no means have a history of hallucinations, psychosis, anything like that. I don’t drink, I don’t do any drugs. Neither does anyone in my family. I don’t think it was a hallucination, that’s all. I honestly don’t know what to make of it. It was because I moved London, I suppose. I moved there right after uni... I was anxious to get out. It probably wasn’t the best idea. I know it wasn’t. But I was transgender, my family was Catholic, and I couldn’t spend another minute there. I was tired of hiding from everyone.

So when I was offered a job in London, I packed up my whole life and moved. What else was I supposed to do?

I was happier in London, but not much. I never passed to strangers, but that was bearable, as my friends all knew and respected my name and such. Aside from that, as you can imagine, my living situation was... less than preferable. I shared a tiny flat with three girls who were nice enough, but rather too loud for an only child who’d lived his whole life in the country. I’m a private person by nature. I found myself wanting to escape the chaos of that flat more often than not. I suppose, then, it’s a good thing it was London, because there were enough parks to wander and eccentric shops to peruse while I was out of the house. It became almost a ritual to me, or somewhat of a scheduled thing. That’s why I didn’t mind living in that flat, I only went home to sleep and eat. I guess that makes my flatmates sound terrible but they really weren’t. They probably thought I was in a cult or something, but I just have... odd habits. Yes, I know it was dangerous for me to be out there wandering the streets completely alone at night, but nothing bad ever happened to me. Really. 

It was on a night like those that I found the bookshop.

I’m not sure why I went in, to be honest. I’ll admit, I’m a book person, but the place looked closed from where I stood on the street. I would have passed it by if I hadn’t... I’m not sure. Like I said, I don’t know why I wanted so badly to go in. It looked about as unwelcoming as a bookshop could be. The hours posted were extremely specific, but it looked like I had found it open and had almost two hours in the shop. I went in. It was about nine-thirty or so. 

The place looked like it hadn’t been swept in years. There were cobwebs and dust on any surface that could hold them, which was quite a few, because the place looked like it could have belonged to an antique furniture collector as well. The weird thing was, although every chair, table, painting, tapestry, lamp, what-have-you, looked like it came from a different time period than all the rest, there was one thing that they all had in common, and it was that everything was covered in wings. 

I assumed in the moment that they were dove wings, although now, I’m not so sure. They were all white, whatever they were. It looked someone had been collecting anything with a bird motif for the last two hundred years and change. For some reason, it made me... I won’t say uneasy; I never felt uneasy in that place, although maybe I should’ve. Something was just a bit off. But I ignored it. I _wanted_ to be there. I still didn’t know why. I made my way into the bookshop proper, stepping over piles of Chaucer and More and God knows what else. I wanted to go in, and I made this decision very quickly, I know that.

The bookshop was quite honestly the most impressive hoarder’s collection I’ve ever seen. Books as far as I could see, shelves of them, piles of them, stretching far past where the building itself ought to have ended. The shop was lit by warm candlelight, which... maybe wasn’t the best idea in a bookshop, but the atmosphere was better for it. I slowly walked through, drawn as if by a string, to the center of the shop, where the rows that radiated outwards converged. Stepping into that huge circle was like... my God, it was like stepping out of a wardrobe and into Narnia. It wasn’t just books. Among the other innumerable artifacts, I saw a brass sextant, an impressive number of chess boards strewn about, and a massive glass cameo vase that probably should’ve been in the British Museum just... sitting on a desk, like it was a teacup or something. There was a skylight that opened up above the inner circle, through which I could somehow, in the middle of Soho, see stars. And then I saw him. The owner, I mean—he must’ve been the owner. He was shelving some books, partially obscured from where I was standing. He was humming something I couldn’t quite hear. I took one step closer, and he turned around, looking almost surprised.

I don’t know how he heard me, to be honest—the carpet was as plush as anything. But I didn’t question it at the time. As soon as he looked at me, I felt... and I know this sounds crazy, this is where it all starts sounding like I had a breakdown or something, but I swear that I felt so many eyes, thousands of them, all staring at me. Staring through me. Like some middle-aged bookseller could see right into my soul. I smelled something sharp and electric—air moments before a lightning strike. There was absolutely nothing off about his appearance, that was the thing; he looked completely human. Yet still there was something about him, the way he spoke, the way he held himself, that made him seem like he was only pretending to be human.

He asked me how I’d gotten in. I was a bit taken aback, of course, but I managed to tell him that the door was unlocked and that the store was open, I’d read his hours. That felt like the wrong thing to say. He huffed at me and said the door had most likely been left unlocked by his... someone who had just left, I didn’t catch their name, and that the sign was wrong. 

I must’ve looked really put out, though, because he gave me this weird, embarrassed look and asked me what the sign said. I told him eleven, and he told me I could stay until then, but only if I swore not to touch anything. Then he walked away before I could say anything more. I tried to follow him, but he’d gone already. That wasn’t a problem. I’d just stay and look around until he closed, then maybe walk around a park for the rest of the evening. 

I turned around and walked down the nearest aisle. The glint of light off a glass case caught my eye. I went over to it and looked inside, and it held a single book sitting on a bed of velvet. _The Picture of Dorian Gray_. There was a small plaque stating that it was a signed first edition. I’d read the book before, but remembered little from it except that the titular Dorian Gray was much older than he looked. Of course, I was more impressed by the fact that this place owned a signed first edition Wilde, but, well. Now, looking back, I wonder if he’d set it out for a reason, like maybe he’d thought it was funny.

I only looked at the book for a few minutes, but the longer I stared, the stranger I felt. Like the bookshop itself was a living, breathing creature. Like the owner was less, or perhaps more, than human. I couldn’t tell you why. I kept staring at Dorian Gray and wondering why I felt like this—I wasn’t scared, not a bit, but there was something strange about that place and I had no idea what it was. 

A hand came down on my shoulder just a few minutes after I found the first edition Wilde. But I turned around and the owner of the bookshop was there, searching me again with those storm-grey eyes, and what felt like thousands more. The sharp electrical smell was back, stronger this time.

“Closing time, Mr. O’Connor,” he told me. He was kind, yet firm, and he steered me towards the door. I went willingly, although I was sure that it wasn’t yet eleven PM. I’d only been in the shop for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. And then, I was standing on the doorstep; I meant to tell him good evening, or anything, really. That was when I saw them again. The wings, I mean. Except this time, they were his own.

Does that make sense? It didn’t to me, not at first. I couldn’t even comprehend what I was seeing. Just... the slightest, wavering outline of two dovelike wings sprouting from the shop owner’s back. They were massive, and... fluffy, and white as snow. Then they were gone, but not disappeared. They folded up, tucked against his back, like a bird would fold its wings. He looked embarrassed after that, the same kind of thing as when we’d first met. The look on his face... that’s why I thought I’d seen something I wasn’t supposed to.

I let him... I suppose it was the shock. Whatever the case, I let him push me out the door and lock up behind me without a single protest. I didn’t waste another moment before hurrying away. And I got about halfway down the block when I checked my watch. I didn’t even think about it.

It was 11:03 PM. Just as he’d told me. Which meant I had spent close to an hour and a half staring at that damned book.

Look, I know it’s crazy. I’m fully aware of how weird and improbable it all is. The eyes, the lightning smell, the lost time, I know, I know. I’ve been puzzling over it for fifteen years and I still have no idea what happened in there. I tried to go back three times after that. The first two times I got lost, and the third time I found the place, but it was closed. It was like it didn’t want me back in. I know exactly how that sounds, but I swear it’s all true. And even after the third time, when I found the place... I don’t remember the name of the shop. At all. Isn’t that strange? Everything else I remember perfectly. 

Like how, and this came to me quite a bit later, he somehow knew both my name and my preferred pronouns. Like I said, there was no way that, in the fall of 1987, any stranger would have just assumed that I was a man. And that doesn’t even touch upon the fact that he knew my name was O’Connor, which, I’ll admit, isn’t completely uncommon, but how could he just look at me and guess...? I think... well, now I think that he wasn’t guessing at all. That perhaps when he was looking at me that first time, or the second time, however nonsensical it may sound, he was looking inside me, looking at the things that I really was. Am.

I’ve been embarrassed to say it all this time, but I think I might have met an angel. There’s no proof, I know. But I reread the journal entry over and over again over those fifteen years, turned over the memories in my head. What I mentioned earlier... throughout it all, I never once felt unsafe. The bookshop felt less like the lair of some creature and more like... well, a nest, to be honest. And him. He looked like he didn’t quite fit in, but not in a creepy way, just in the kind of way that makes you feel almost bad for him. He didn’t threaten me. You see? I was the one that found the shop, I was the one that went inside that strange dwelling. I’m not sure what happened in there, but it must have been natural to him. It is my belief, at least now, that some of us—some of those living among us—live by different rules.

Anyway. Thank you for letting me submit this, even if nobody ever believes a single word. It feels good to finally have it written down somewhere other than my journal.

Statement ends. 

I find that I cannot believe any part of this statement. Mr. O’Connor unfortunately passed away in 2015, so the only thing I could do was send Martin out to look for the bookshop. He came back with nothing. There’s not a trace of any shop in Soho matching the description given by Mr. O’Connor. I also had Martin search the nearby neighborhoods, since we had to account for the possibility that Mr. O’Connor could have gotten lost in the dark and mistaken another neighborhood for Soho. Martin still found nothing. The fact that the bookshop described by Mr. O’Connor apparently does not exist, alongside the fact that Mr. O’Connor is a self-proclaimed Catholic, or ex-Catholic at the very least, leads me to believe that his encounter with—his own words—an angel was nothing more than a hallucination... or perhaps wishful thinking. 

However—and I am not certain how relevant this is, but it felt wrong not to include it—Martin was out that day for about twice as long as usual. I would normally write this off as nothing more than his usual incompetence, but when he finally returned to the Institute, he was disoriented, complaining of a headache, and... he smelled of ozone. Perhaps it would be appropriate to conduct another search... but without any evidence whatsoever, I suppose that would be nothing more than a waste of Institute resources.

End recording.

**Author's Note:**

> got bored and wrote this in anatomy lmao


End file.
